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Healthcare-associated Infections

At any given time, about 1 in every 25 patients has an infection related to their hospital care. Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) not only affect patient lives, but also add to our growing healthcare costs.

CDC has identified eliminating HAIs as a Winnable Battle. With additional effort and support for evidence-based, cost-effective strategies that we can implement now, we can have a significant impact on our nation’s health.

The HAI Winnable Battle materials below provide a snapshot of the context and background for this priority area, as well as descriptions of some of the systems, policy, and programmatic interventions pursued by CDC and our public health partners at the federal, state and local levels.